Ash Wednesday 2025
For those Table-mates who were unable to join us for the Imposition of Ashes, consider maneuvering through the liturgy below:
Words of Introduction
LENT begins - today - Wednesday, March 5th, & is marked by the 40 days, not including Sundays, between Ash Wednesday and Holy Saturday - April 19th. We observe Lent as a deliberate way to join with the church around the world in preparing ourselves for Resurrection. Instead of charging ahead to Easter, Lent calls us to examine our relationship with God/others/self and the ways we respond to God's love for us or fail to respond to love. Lent is a time of remembrance that steers us toward repentance. Lent is an opportunity to experience God’s mercy here & now, to be released from negative patterns of behavior, and to embrace a life of loving holiness. Lent is a season to experience the depths of the Easter message – a new creation in Christ.
Ash Wednesday has been honored by Christians for well over ten centuries. In the earliest ages, Christians who had been stuck in persistent sin had ashes sprinkled on their bodies as a sign of repentance, even as Job repented “in dust and ashes” (Job 42:6). Around the tenth century, many believers began to signify their need for repentance by having ashes placed on their foreheads in the shape of a cross. ***Notice: even this sign of sinfulness hinted at the good news yet to come through its shape. Ash Wednesday is more than a dour holy day rather, it symbolically anticipates the pattern of Life/Death/Life-after-death.
Ashes are placed on the foreheads of worshipers as a reminder of our frailty, mortality and sinfulness. The person who imposes the ashes quotes something like what God once said to Adam after he had sinned: “Remember...You are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Gen 3:19). This is the soil-y news of our grittiness that prepares us to receive the good news of forgiveness/hope/Life in Christ Jesus our Savior, Healer, and Guide.
The Spiritual Location Exercise for Beginning Your (Lenten) Retreat by Beth Booram
How do you come to this time?
The Spiritual Location Exercise is a helpful place to start when you begin a retreat. It answers the question, “How do I come to this time?” by providing a way to do a “life-scan” of your heart, mind, body and soul. It invites you to “locate” yourself in your life situation and take a deeper look at what’s going on within you. There are three movements to this exercise. You can write your response in the space provided or in your own journal.
First Movement: begin by sitting up tall in your chair, grounding your feet on the floor and taking three to five deep cleansing breaths until you feel centered within your body. Then begin, stream of consciousness, to write down responses to the questions below.
1. What are the givens/facts of my life (the undeniable realities)?
2. What are the preoccupations of my mind (what I’ve been thinking a lot about lately)?
3. What are the movements of my heart (prevailing emotions)?
4. What is the condition of my body?
5. What questions would I like to ask God? What questions do I yearn to have answered?
6. What are my current longings & desires?
Second Movement: read back over your responses three or more times, underlining statements or sentences that seem to stand out and have meaning or importance. Reflect on the highlighted statements and then respond to some or all of these questions:
· What seems to be the overall theme?
· What does this theme bring to your awareness?
· What seems clear to you about how you come to this time? · Did anything surprise you?
Third Movement: once you’ve identified the main theme or important awareness, spend time reflecting on its significance through journaling, talking with God about it and listening to the Divine’s response.
…
Slowly breathe in and out these prayers, Scriptures, and confessions. Let us practice together the art of: SITting. STAYing. WALKing in the Way of Jesus. May the Spirit richly indwell our hearts & minds...
A Prayer for the Trailhead of Lent
Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent: create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our grittiness, may obtain of you, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.
[Reception of Ashes]
Almighty God, you have created us out of the dust of the earth: grant that these ashes may be to us a sign of our mortality and penitence, that we may remember that it is only by your gracious gift that we are given everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
Why Ashes???
Magnitude & Mercy…Sin & Sinner…Movement & Medicine
Con > fess > ion:
[To come clean with current reality]
What is my current reality?
Can I name the current pulses of my heart?
What am I currently feeling, sensing, fearing?
H E A R T — The first picture in this Hebrew word is a shepherd staff and represents authority, as the shepherd has authority over his flock. The second letter is the picture of the floor plan of the nomadic tent and represents the idea of being inside, as the family resides within the tent. When combined they mean "the authority within".
LITANY of PENITENCE
Most holy & merciful God: We confess to you & to one another,
And to the whole communion of saints in heaven & on earth,
That we have sinned by our own fault in thought, word & deed;
By what we have done, and by what we have left undone.
We have not loved you with our whole heart & mind & strength.
We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.
We have not forgiven others, as we have been forgiven.
[Have mercy on us, Lord]
We have been deaf to your call to serve, as Christ served us.
We have not been true to the mind of Christ.
We have grieved your Holy Spirit
[Have mercy on us, Lord]
SINS against SELF
We confess to you, Lord, all our past unfaithfulness:
the pride, hypocrisy and impatience of our lives.
[We confess to you, Lord]
Our self-indulgent appetites and ways,
and our exploitation of other people,
Our anger at our own frustration
and our envy of those more fortunate than ourselves,
Our denial of intemperate love of worldly goods and comforts,
and our dishonesty in daily life and work,
Our negligence in prayer and worship
and our failure to commend the faith that is in us.
SINS against OUR NEIGHBOR
Accept our repentance, Lord, for the wrongs we have done:
for our blindness to human need and suffering
and our indifference to injustice and cruelty,
[Accept our repentance, Lord]
For all false judgments,
for uncharitable thoughts toward our neighbors
and for our prejudice
and contempt toward those who differ from us.
SINS against CREATION
For our waste and pollution of your creation
and our lack of concern for those who come after us,
Restore us, good Lord, and let your anger depart from us,
[Favorably hear us, for your mercy is great.]
Accomplish in us the work of your salvation,
[That we may show your glory to the world.]
By the cross and passion of your Son our Lord,
[Bring us with all your saints to the joy of his resurrection.]
Read & Reflect: PSALM 90 &/or PSALM 103
Lay it ALL down
…We encourage you to listen to the Will Reagan song “Lay It All Down” (found on the Coastal Lent 2021 playlist) as you consider these questions below…
What do I sense the Spirit & my spirit are asking me to
practice/surrender/lay down
during LENT 2021?
[After a time of heart examination,
feel free to tear away and place in the "coffin"
as an exercise of "death" that can lead to new life...]
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God,
What are you inviting me (us) to practice, surrender, or lay down over the next 40 days?
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God,
What do I (we) sense you want to offer me (us) over the next 40 days?
Benediction & Blessing:
May we rend our hearts and not our clothing.
[Let's return to the Lord, our God.]
God is gracious & merciful, God is slow to anger & quick to forgive.
[God is abounding in steadfast love & relents in punishment.]
May we walk with Jesus as we are led toward the cross and resurrection!
The peace of Christ be with you...
[And also with you...]